Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Back in 2007 I was teaching a Quilt-As-You-Go technique by Sharon Pederson, which she calls Reversible Quilting. Each one of these hexagons was hand-pieced, worked on while sitting with my college roommate Dodie as she was being treated for her Stage 4 Lung Cancer. Here's a link showing the quilt I made for her. And these blocks were left over. To prove to the class I was teaching that reversible quilting can be used with any shape, I worked on this quilt.

Fast forward 10 years. Why did I put this away for so long when it was almost completed? Who knows. I probably saw something shinier and brighter.

And guildster Debbie Pine's meeting last year about UFO's has spurred me on, too. (Thank you, Deb - next up is that damn medallion quilt...)

So what to do with this quilt? It's an odd size - 48" x 70". And as pretty as it is on both sides, you can't see both sides at once. But still. It needs a home.

In the mid-80's when I was teaching at Hyde Park HS, I had some terrific students. One of them was Bridgette. We have become FB friends for several years, and it's been a joy to see her no longer as a bright-shiny teenager but as a woman full of grace, wisdom, and generosity. She had some terrific damage from one of the recent hurricanes on the East Coast and lost a lot. When she said she was interested in this quilt, I was thrilled. It will be on its way to her as soon as her home repairs are complete. Because these blocks are connected to Dodie, it is special. And I can't think of someone more special than B to share this with.

I'm heading for a few days with a quilty and then J and I are travelling to Orlando for Thanksgiving. These bags? Good for hostess gifts - even though one household has said they need no more bags. Wait until they see this one!

This table of fabrics represent projects of the sewing future. These are all for Sew Powerful. The hope is that there will be over 8000 purses unboxed in November. I sent off my box last week, and I already have six completed for the next deadline. I am hoping to top what I sent off.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

I think about the title of this blog. While what I do may not be
daringly adventuresome, my adventure certainly has longevity. And it's highly focused on quilts, bags, and purses. Quilty buddy Mimi gave me a big pile of wonderfully Asian-ish blues. I took two of them to pilot this unstructured bag, Hampton Weekend Bag. It went together quickly - I can see keeping something like this in the car for small shopping trips. There's a magnet closure, a little zippered pocket inside, and a little slip pocket inside. The strap has a slider so that it can be a cross-body bag or an over-the-shoulder bag.

Even though I just sent off 34 purses, I needed to make more. These are
an experiment with the various styles of this cross body pattern. The
top three have a gusset joining the front and back. The bottom three
have boxed corners. They are slightly easier to do. Pink Castle Fabrics in Ann Arbor has a lovely sale with these fabrics at $6 a yard, which is terrific. It's fun to work with coordinating prints. Since the whole purpose of this Menstrual Hygiene Management program through Sew Powerful is to encourage young ladies to stay in school, I think the back flap fabric is just so perfect. I just ordered some more - a lot of future purses are going to include this alphabet fabric. I am putting purses away (ha, as if...) for a few days and moving on to a couple of other projects.

As I was working on the previous black and white quilt, I cut 2" logs from the scraps to start a log cabin. These 9 blocks are on the design wall, and I don't love this. I think the problem is that the patterns create a "floral" or busy quality. I am going to work on calming these blocks down by adding more fabrics that read solid. And as I made this decision, I remember what I love about log cabins: the variety in layout options. And it dawned on me that if I had some grey and white blocks and perhaps some black and grey blocks, the design possibilities will be so much more interesting. I love working on a project like this - one with no particular outcome. Below is the same layout only with a white diamond in the center.